


The Song Goes On

by AnInternationalReputation



Category: Sherlock (TV), The Mentalist
Genre: Assumed Relationship, Crossover Pairings, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-19
Updated: 2014-05-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 18:55:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1658870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnInternationalReputation/pseuds/AnInternationalReputation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remembering his family isn't the same now that Jane can no longer go back to America. A short and spontaneous piece of sadfluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Song Goes On

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pensive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pensive/gifts).



> For pensive, who, when asked for a prompt, requested "epic janelock fluff."

The cherry trees are blooming in Regent's Park.

It's a bright and refreshing change after a chilly, drizzly, grey winter - Jane's first winter in London. Still, their presence doesn't inspire cheer so much as a hook to hang his melancholy on.

He sits on one of the iron filigree benches with his hands clasped between his knees, staring at nothing in particular and breathing in the occasional waft of the flowers' perfume on the breeze.

* * *

_Oh._

That was all Sherlock said the other week, after commenting on how sullen Jane had been lately, sooner after realizing that it was approaching the anniversary of Annie and Charlotte's murder.  _Oh._ That was it. Jane hadn't thought to expect more - he'd known what he was getting into with Sherlock - but that didn't take the sting out of it. It was a hammer driving home what he'd already suspected: when it came to remembering his family, he was entirely on his own anymore. Thousands of miles between himself and their graves, on a plot of land he probably won't be able to set foot on for the rest of his life, and the most he gets from the person closest to him is _oh_.

It was difficult not to be furious with Sherlock, at first. He has been at times, dropping assurances that everything's all right without meaning a word of it ( _It's fine, I don't expect you to understand, you've never lost anyone like that_ ). But as the day itself has approached, Jane's found himself becoming more morose than angry, slipping into a dark cloud.

This is his to bear alone, as usual. But he needs to find a new way of handling it.

* * *

It smells like her shampoo. Almost. The shampoo itself had that over-saturated chemical soapy quality and the scent always changed once it came in contact with her hair, becoming flowers-salt-and-oil, but the cherry blossom never got completely lost. The scent on the wind from the park drew him in- he doesn't know how long he's been sitting here, especially when the overcast sky makes it difficult to measure the length of shadows.

The air starts to get dim eventually - sun going down, behind the clouds. Jane still has no desire to go anywhere, especially not back to Baker Street. He needs to take his time here, and whatever whirlwind Sherlock is currently caught up in would only cause tension.

He turns and lies down, closes his eyes. He thinks of Angela: especially her hair, because of the blossoms, but other things too. Listening to her play the piano. Her smile on the day they were married. Seeing her sit with Charlotte, the two of them the light of his life.

He might have dozed off. Not for long; the light hasn't changed much - but he suddenly starts awake with a sniff, something catching and sticking at the back of his throat. A stronger, more processed scent than the one he's been sitting downwind of all afternoon. Blossoms and chemicals and soap.

Gotta be his imagination. Sense memory brought on by the dream; these things happen. But - Jane sits up - no. He's awake and it's still with him, hanging around him in the air. Tentative, he raises the back of his hand to his face and sniffs.

It's on his hand.

The air is still now. No breeze blowing the scent of the tree blossoms toward him - not that he'd be able to smell it if it were, with this new scent overpowering his nostrils. He looks around. A woman in heels walks by. A child shouts playfully in the distance.

He's been disrupted. The mind gets easily distracted, and this is curious enough to break through his melancholy. Jane stands, giving his fingers another sniff, and begins to amble along the park path.

Ten feet on, he encounters the smell again. Subtler than that on his skin, but it's there in the air, a thin cloud of it. Definitely the shampoo.

Jane moves on to pass through another cloud of it, and another... there's a trail leading him toward the Outer Circle, and eventually... it's a roundabout way, but it becomes clear after not much longer: the trail is leading him to Baker Street.

The sun's all the way down by the time he turns onto the street. The clouds of cherry-blossom-shampoo scent have grown more sparse, or have dissipated with the rising breeze, but Jane's known where he's headed for the last ten minutes. And that's when he hears the music: the violin playing behind the dimly-lit window of their flat. The string part of Mozart's Concerto Number 27.

It wouldn't have been impossible to discover all this, Jane knows. Far from it. Still, the lengths Sherlock would have had to go to...

After having slowed at the beginning of the block, his steps speed up as he approaches the front door. He doesn't quite _run_ up the stairs - but his heart is racing as though he was.

The lights are off, and there are candles burning on the coffee table. White memorial candles of differing heights, and there's Sherlock in the flickering glow, playing on as if he hadn't noticed the door opening or heard Jane's feet on the stairs. He reaches one of the points where the strings drop out to make way for the piano, and the violin goes silent.

The whole room goes silent. Jane can hear the piano, though: in his mind, in a place far away from here, drifting down the stairs.

His eyes feel wet, and he's not altogether certain when that started, but he doesn't move to wipe any of it away. Sherlock's lowering the violin.

"She loved Mozart," Jane says, quiet.

Sherlock's lips twitch. "Wasn't all that hard to find out. There are still people who remember her in the states -"

But Jane's hardly listening to the explanation, is already surging across the room to pull Sherlock into a tight hug. Drawing back after a long moment to kiss him, pouring all of his gratitude into it. He doesn't give a damn about forcing Sherlock to face his emotional reactions right now - if he didn't expect something like this, he's an idiot.

He melts away from the kiss, curls his fingers around the back of Sherlock's neck.

"Thank you."

Sherlock's lips have become a line, his shoulders sag with an unvoiced sigh. He looks toward the floor, nods, and Jane draws him into another embrace - this one not so desperately tight, but still close. This time, Sherlock leans his head sideways against Jane's, his nose brushing against an ear.

The music is still rolling on in Jane's head: Annie's fingers on the keys, playing for him across an ocean, across so many years. But the piano part's coming to an end soon. Jane pulls away at last, takes a step back.

"Your cue's coming up." He backs toward the couch, circles a hand in the air - inviting and playful, even through the tears. "Play on, Maestro."

Sherlock gives a little bow with his chin before lifting the instrument to it. Jane lies back on the couch, and lets the sounds both in and outside of his mind mingle together in harmony.


End file.
